New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1887-09-11

OTHER SINNERS TURNING.

It NAV be that the agitation in Georgia re-
garding the convict lease system VIII prove
the beginning of a general awakening through
out the South. IL is sorely needed, for no less
than seven States south of Mason and DXon
line adhere to this barbarous method. The
Georgia disclosures have had the effect OF
stimulating curiosity in South Carolina as TO
the working of the system there. The
Charleston News aud Courier sent CORE
spondcnt to investigate rumors of the ilf-trcat-
ment OF convicts working Under lease IN inc
Blackyille Railroad. lie seems TO have found
no sensational incidents TO report, but his ac-
count of the mode of life and work In the
convict camps is all the more Instructive,
perhaps. on that account. If the results he
eives are those found where the system Is
administered with something approaching
humanity, what must they be where brutality
il the ruler
One hundred convicts were set to work In
ebruary last in two months one out of every
five was in the hospital with scurvy be-
cause of an insufficient supply of vegetable
food. Later on about the same proportion
were suffering from malarial fcycrs, no doubt
the result of exposure. In June medical
penitentiary about fifteen convicts, suffering
| from colds, scurvy and constitutional diseases.
The latter had been kept at work during three
months, and were then pronounced unit TO
work at all These and other changes, IN
Guiding deaths, had reduced the number oil
ccnvicts to sixty-fve. Fifty OF these, the
correspondent found, slept at night in an Old
| farm-h house, twenty feet by Twenty-Five and
one story high The partitions were down,
and the fifty men slept thus in one room,
SOME being on shelves. Fifteen were Obliged
TO sleep on the piazza, where, it is suggested
their quarters were not likely to be found TOO
luxurious in heavy rain or sudden cold.
| The bath-tub except when they were in the
neighborhood of creeks and ponds, was small
horsc-trou Oh. The food seemed fairly good
except for the lack of vegetables, but the
methods of preparing it were careless. The
contractor clothes as well as feeds the con-
Wet, and pays the State Sc so month be-
sides for his services, working HIM from sun
rise to sunset, with two hours midday rest
in summer, one hour in winter. The CORE
spondcnt significantly remarks of the appear
ance of the cUnvicts that " in the presence oil
the guards and at the mouth OF the shotgun,
they arc a remarkably cheerful racc." Per
haps the punishment of from ten to thirty
lashes with thick strap for insufficient work
has something to do with their good spirits IN
the presence of strangers. This is mllder
picture than that of the atrocities in Georgia,
but no one ought to need to be told that such
system involves at the best shameful
evasion by the State of its duties toward the
prisoner.
But the North is not without its blot. The
attention of the Omaha Conference Of Charities
was directed to the workings of the convict
! leasc system IN Nebraska. The brutal and
degrading features of chain gang life are want
ing. but the Conference found enough to con-
denim. The contracts are given out by the
elective State officers, SO that contractors are
found in politics, and politicians in contracts
The State not only gives the contractor the
labor of the convicts. but pays him forty cents
a dav TO feed and cIothe them. Here again
il the same abdication OF its duties by the
state. Public opinion enphatically demands
an end Of all this.